So some of you know that I've been threatening to write a fic based mostly on Kyla/Carmen for a while now and I've actually done it! Yup, I'm not sure how long a piece this will be or how well it will go over, but I'm doing it! 'Cos Carmen and Kyla are hot and collectively they kinda blow my pervy mind. Also, I see some similarities in them after reading all the spoilers and stuff, so it makes for some fun fucking...uh...I meant to type fic-ing, I swear!

Obviously though, I'm not making Carmen this evil ho that's going to try to steal Spencer from Ashley...uhm, well, she'll only start out that way, but she'll see the light soon enough!

Onto the warning then: HERE BE SOME SPOILERS!! Though I do mostly veer off into my own little universe with them after a while...

I don't own SoN, it's all Tommy Lynch's.

Bad Reputation.

Chapter 1

Carmen had been down on her luck before, but being homeless was pushing the envelope in her opinion. Not only had she fucked it up with Spencer, the first sweet girl she met, but she goes and turns into a bum too. Life...was not good.

And it was all her own fault.

She knew that of course, because although she might have anger management issues as well as a sizable inferiority complex, she wasn't exactly stupid. She had a theory actually that stupid people had it easier than the smart ones, 'cos half the time they were too dumb to realize exactly how messed up their lives where. You couldn't be unhappy with your lot in life if you weren't smart enough to realize that there was probably something better out there for you.

So Carmen was smart enough to know that being a homeless person at seventeen was not the best she could have done with her life so far. She had brooded on it some, sitting on her park bench that doubled as a bed when the shelters were full, eating a can of baked beans she'd stolen from a local grocery store. She had wanted to go for the good stuff, some canned meat or something, but she'd panicked and grabbed the first tin she could. Turned out she wasn't as badass as she thought she was...

Shoplifting for the first time had almost made her pee her pants.

So she had sat there, eating baked beans and wondering how the hell she was going to get herself out of her current predicament when some pimply faced teenage boy had walked up to her and wordlessly handed her a flyer.

It was for a soup kitchen, a time and date and address printed neatly on blue paper inviting everyone in need to come on over and get fed.

It had pissed Carmen off to a great degree that she had actually started looking homeless. Why the hell else would the guy have given her the flyer?!

So she had made sure to bathe as thoroughly as one could in a public restroom before she headed to the advertised soup kitchen the next day. There was quite the crowd, young and old, black and white, the good smelling (Carmen) and the bad smelling (the guy who stood behind her sporting a Jesus beard!). Yet as the line moved and she came closer to a hot meal, someone from the crowd stood out.

Well, more like stuck out like a sore thumb, what with her bright red heels and Gucci sunglasses perched on top of sleek, gleaming dark hair.

Kyla Woods.

Carmen had instantly known who she was, but that wasn't surprising seeing as Kyla's face had been plastered on cheap tabloid magazines for the last few weeks. Everyone knew about Kyla and her inherited millions as well as her fall from grace. Mostly it was the part about the inherited millions that peaked Carmen's interest.

Normally, despite what happened between her and Spencer, she wouldn't have classified herself as a bad person. She wasn't inherently corrupt or selfish or mean spirited, but that day she made a decision that was less than moral. Necessity made you forget things like morals and ethics in the end.

It didn't come to her immediately, the plan that is, but kinda crept up on her. She only realized what she was doing after the fact almost. It had started relatively innocent enough, with Carmen just wanting to know how Spencer was.

Kyla had been scooping up soup into a bowl when Carmen spoke up, her voice full of it's usual confidence, despite her current situation.

"So how's Spencer doing these days?"

The question coming so out of the blue had obviously startled Kyla, soup splashing onto her manicured hands and a curse fluttering from between her glossed lips.

"Uh...what?"

Carmen had smiled then, unconsciously deciding that Kyla Woods wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

"I asked how Spencer was doing. You guys are friends, right?"

Kyla had looked her up and down then, from the top of her slightly in need of a wash hair to the scuffed knock off Converse on her feet. Carmen was pissed off at first, her default setting for a good while now, but when she looked down at herself she couldn't really blame the girl for giving her the curiously confused look.

She looked like crap. Or more accurately, crap that had been sleeping on a park bench while eating baked beans and left overs of dubious origin for quite some time now. It was all a little disheartening when she'd looked at it that way. She guessed she would also have found it hard to believe that Spencer Carlin, all round good girl and as vanilla as they come, would be friends with someone like her.

When she looked up and finally caught Kyla's eye again, she gave a small shrug and self deprecating smile.

"Hey, at least I smell better than I look. I call it Eau De Public Bathroom, it's affordable and easily found in a park near you..."

For a second or two Kyla had stared open mouthed at her, then gave a bark of laughter that she tried to disguise as a muffled cough.

"Uh...right, think I'll stick to Chanel No.5 though."

Then they were back to staring at each other, Carmen grinning like she didn't have a care in the world and Kyla fighting the urge to do the same. That lasted all of five seconds, because Carmen at that point became aware of hot breath on the back of her neck and the creepy feeling you get when someone invades your private space.

When she turned around she found herself staring straight into the suspiciously moving beard of the Jesus look alike behind her. She cocked her head to the side to get a better look and finally decided that yes, it was indeed bugs or lice or some other creepy fucking thing that was crawling around in the guy's beard.

Carefully, but quickly, she took a step back and put some distance between herself and whatever infestation the guy was wanting to share. All she needed now was to pick up crabs waiting in line at a soup kitchen. She was pretty sure that was hitting rock bottom right there!

Or, and this was her more morose side talking, she figured it was maybe Karma's way of getting back at her for shoving a very sweet girl into a wall. Her chest tightened at the thought, shame and guilt washing over her as it always did when she remembered how she had treated Spencer. She was her father's daughter in the end and her inability to change that fact grated on her heavily.

Before the depression and self hate could set in, she mentally shook it off. The middle of a soup kitchen with a hot chick staring at you wasn't the spot to have a nervous breakdown after all. Carmen reserved that for nights on her park bench, when she stared at the stars for hours and let the loneliness and guilt creep in.

So with a smirk she should in all reality not be wearing in her current situation, she turned back to Kyla and wiggled her eyebrows.

"What do you say you and me go find ourselves a table where it's not so...crowded."

She meaningfully looked at Crab Man who was giving both her and Kyla a rather scary, toothless grin and watched as Kyla frowned, her nose twitching slightly as she caught a whiff of him.

"You know, that's not a bad idea. I mean I've been on my feet all day and I'm due a break anyway..."

She trailed off and looked over to the tables and benches a few feet away, before making a move to walk around the table where the big pots of soup where standing. Yet when Carmen's stomach growled and her face flushed in slight embarrassment, both girls where reminded why Carmen was there in the first place. For a second or two both girls just stared at each other, until Carmen hung her head and bit her lip, fighting off the tears again. She wasn't sure if they were tears of sadness or tears of anger, or if the hopelessness of her life was catching up with her again. She just knew that in that moment, with Kyla standing in front of her, the reality of her life was a painful thing to accept.

It was in that moment that Kyla, vain and shallow as she could be, felt something stir in her chest. Something like sympathy, or if she was honest, maybe even empathy. The last few months she had lost herself, had become a warped and twisted version of who she thought she was or at least could be and looking at Carmen standing in front of her, she figured the girl might know a little something about that. Neither of their lives had worked out as they had imagined.

For all the apparent differenced, they were very possibly scarily alike.

So without a further word she finished scooping a bowl as full as she could with warm soup and loaded a paper plate with bread. She didn't flinch or frown as she finally made her way around the serving table and took Carmen by the hand, fingers fitting familiarly together despite the fact that she had never even spoke to the girl before that day.

Kyla was tired of screwing up, tired of being a vapid, selfish and lately self destructive girl. That was Ashley's shtick after all. So she did what her heart told her, something she sadly couldn't remember doing in a very long time, at least not since her first months in L.A after her father died, and led Carmen to a table.

She would let the girl eat, because God knows it was obvious she was hungry, and she would let her talk. Or they could sit quietly, whatever it was this girl with her startlingly sad, blue eyes wanted to do, because not everything was about her, Kyla Woods, in the end. And wasn't that the point of volunteering at a soup kitchen?

She wanted to change, needed to change, and maybe helping this girl today in this small way was another small step in the right direction.

Okay, fine, and she kinda wanted to know how Spencer knew someone that was so obviously not from their usual crowd, because she might have been on the path of redemption and all that, but she was still Kyla Woods. And Kyla Woods was pretty damn curious.

So the two girls sat down at a table in some shade and without realizing it, without meaning it to happen, they started down a road that no one would ever have imagined them traveling. Kyla with her (almost purely) good intentions and Carmen with her (initially) selfish motivations, were about to impact on each other's lives, whether the world was ready for it or not.

Fate, it would seem, had a pretty wicked sense of humor like that.

- - -

So I'm hoping you all will give this a chance and if you like it, tell me and I'll continue. If you hated it, please flame in a respective manner, for I am thin skinned, sensitive and might just shrivel up and DIE! (I'm also pretty mellow dramatic, sorry!)

This is mostly set up, but I hope you look past that (and the pairing) and be open minded about this little story.